


Golden Mile

by JoAsakura



Series: The Dark Road [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 13:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2469593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hope endures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golden Mile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wargoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/gifts).



Some creatures had hope as a birthright. It was encoded into their souls, hard-wired into their component molecules. For others, it was hard won.

For the Gardeners - those that had been called Reapers by the Small Ones - hope was a fragile commodity.

Nearly fifty thousand years ago they had left their garden by the gate the old Catalyst had hidden, sleeping in orbit around a dead, brown dwarf - followed the Guide through that door into Dark Space. They had been prepared for hardship, for unknowable danger for the first time in the billion years since their creation.

But they had not been prepared for what greeted them when they appeared out of the mass effect corridor at the first leg, and at each millennium-long space thereafter as the long-silent relays groaned to life with their arrivals. 

Once, unknown to any of them (aside from the Shepard with the Catalyst's ancient knowledge scraping at his brain), there had been another fleet. One that had been forced to cannibalise itself - moving ever forward to the M31 galaxy at lightspeed, only stopping to tear one of it's own apart to build the relays, until...

"It looks like they killed each other in the end." The Shepard said, the illusion of his core-form sitting on the bow of his gleaming silver shipbody as he surveyed the chaos littering the space before them.

Nox came alongside, joining the Shepard in gestalt. They had slowly been reshaping their form to mirror their friend's, insectile shape more human with every passing millennia. Like many of the others, the little destroyer had taken to decorating their hull - swirling patterns of radioactive elements, that recounted the tales of forgotten homes and lost companions. "Then, this relay is the last?" They asked, virtual form sitting beside the Shepard, wings folding in around them.

"I don't know. The Catalyst's data ends here." Shepard scrubbed his hands across the sleek mask of his face, blue eyes burning like hot, young suns. The graceful arches of his shipbody trembled in echo of the motion and he cycled his drivecore. "Dark matter is rich here. We can feed while Harbinger and the others catch up to us. See what we can salvage from these as we've done with the others." He got up to pace the length of his own form.

"You're worried." Nox chased after him, along the shining curve of the bow, even as the long fingers of his shipbody plucked at the shadowy corpses strewn around the relay. "About the creche."

"It's only natural." The Shepard sighed. "We move so much slower with the little ones, now."

"You mean Harbinger moves so much slower." Regent came up on the Shepard's other side, dwarfing the sleek silver vanguard. "They linger to protect the body of the fleet while we forge ahead, making sure the way is safe." Even in gestalt, the huge sovereign- class showed no core-form -only a dark, formless presence. Their hull was dead black, pitted by the storms of debris and dust the fleet had weathered on their journey and they prodded at the remains with a hiss. "What a waste of biomass."

"I mostly worry about you, Regent." A swathe of red lit along the edge of the Shepard's skin, mirroring the burning red stripe on his virtual armour. 

"We abandoned our duty, Shepard." Regent loomed over him and Nox slowly backed out of formation, trembling at the edges of gestalt. "We abandoned the Harvest."

"I brought you out here because I know the calendar, Regent." The Shepard swung around to face the bigger ship, pushing aside the veils of their shared gestalt to stand in Regent's control room. "I will not let you return to what you were, and I will not let you Harvest in our new home." Silver gauntlets fisted in the shapeless shadow. "You need to accept..."

"HOME?" Regent's shout was the blare of a Reaper's claxon in their gestalt. "You knew this road we travel had been built on the corpses of our siblings. A road of death to a place you know nothing about! I will not allow you to destroy us!" Regent's claws flexed, and their guns flared as long-sleeping weapons began to come back online. "We once grew with the Harvest. Thanks to you we scrape our pathetic children together from data shards and dark matter. We are debased, thanks to you, Small One." They spat those last syllables like a curse.

The arches on the Shepard's shipbody stiffened into a razor-edged frill. "Nox. Run. Run back to Harbinger and the others and tell them about...."

~~

The Shepard came back online with a lurch, patches of vaporised gold coating the gaping gashes in his silver skin, nestled safe within Harbinger's massive claws. 

"I warned you about taking Regent on your scouting missions." Harbinger rumbled in their private gestalt. The Shepard was curled in his embrace, scorched silver wrapped in fathomless black. "If Nox hadn't..."

"I wanted to give them the chance." The Shepard slowly pulled off the blank silver mask, fragmented human features peering up into the other's shadowy hood. 

"You gave Regent fifty thousand years of chances." Harbinger grumbled. "You have never given up hope for this fresh start for us but they never had it to begin with." He pushed back his hood, data for his own human face faltering and flickering in the dim rainbows of their room. "Many will not disagree. This relay was the last. We have millions of years of travel ahead of us, and so many have been lost already."

"Not lost." The Shepard said, pushing himself upright as the the room filled with columns of light. "Their stories, their memories are within me, and our children will carry them as soon as they're grown."

They both turned to look at the vast windows that covered the virtual walls of their gestalt. Quick, flickering shapes darting between the great shadows of the Gardeners - the biggest no larger or tougher than a human frigate they still told stories about. "Fifty thousand years." Harbinger pulled him closer, claws tightening on the shipbody in his grasp. 

The Shepard replaced the mask on his face, settling comfortably in Harbinger's embrace. Together, they watched the tiny pods play amongst the strands of dark matter that threaded the galaxies together. "I can't wait to see what comes next."


End file.
